Ariel Helwani weighs in on new UFC ban on fighters placing bets
The UFC's new 'athlete code of conduct' policy, which prohibits fighters and their teams from betting on any UFC fights, has been met with sharp reproach from the MMA community.
Renowned MMA journalist Ariel Helwani, who was amongst the first to bring the news to the public, recently weighed in on the new ban.
UFC just issued this memo to fighters and managers regarding a change in their athlete conduct policy:
UFC fighters are now prohibited from gambling on any UFC fight, regardless of if they are involved or not. They can still be sponsored just not allowed to bet at all. https://t.co/6zhuIITxmx
Several fighters, including the likes of featherweight contender Chris Wade and former middleweight champion Chris Weidman, took to Twitter to express their rebuke.
Check out the tweets below:
@arielhelwani I wasn’t even allowed to sign up for draft kings. They knew I fought and denied me an account in NY. Can’t even use them to pick football or any other sport. Apparently fighting makes me have inside info on every league and sport.
@CWadeMMA @arielhelwani Same with me on draft kings
The way Helwani sees it, the recent ban is another example of how the organization continuously fails to treat its fighters like independent contractors.
Speaking about the same on a recent episode of The MMA Hour, Helwani stated:
"It brings up once again, are they independent contractors or are they employees? Now if you're an employee, and there's an employee rule book, you have to adhere to it."
Further shedding light on the issue, Helwani referred to an instance to justify his claim. The Canadian-American journalist explained that if he's hired a professional to fix his garage, he has no control over the hired hand's whereabouts after the job gets done:
"Once he's done the job, I can't tell this guy what to do or where to be, anything like that. That's an independent contractor. UFC fighters are continuously not treated like independent contractors."
Watch the full video below:
Ariel Helwani suggests alternative measures to make the UFC's new policy fair
Several UFC fighters have deemed the recently introduced betting ban preposterous.
Former two-division champion Henry Cejudo went as far as to question whether fighters had signed a waiver on their contracts that prohibits them from betting. Featherweight contender Chris Wade claimed that with the new policy, he cannot even bet on other sports.
Watch Henry Cejudo talk about the new policy below:
During the very same appearance, Ariel Helwani suggested an alternative approach to the policy:
"I do feel like the integrity of the sport needs to remain as pure as possible. I do feel weird about people betting on their own fights. I feel like the appropriate thing would be, 'You can't bet on your own fights, win or lose'. And maybe it goes as far as to say, 'You can't bet on your teammate's fight or training partner's fight.'"